The OG 2018 Drake smash is the first to fall, landing lowest in just about every metric I have going - points, +5s, positive %s, average vote, and total PPV. It also has one of the highest average weekly standard deviations (only bested by 2 songs that charted just 1-2 weeks), with 83% of its votes being either +3 or above, or -3 or below. It probably has low voter numbers to thank for making the top 80 ('In My Feelings' and 'Nice For What' got about 35-40 more votes despite charting 1 week less), but it did well to reach #4 and not sink to the bottom, despite a pretty anti-pop structure with its biggest hook ('she said do you love me...') placed at the start of a verse.

But wait! Here's 'In My Feelings' too, tied and placing higher due to having more +5s. It's the first song with at least 50% positive votes (well technically 49.7%), and there's only 1 other before the top 55 (and that isn't a hip hop song, surprisingly). Though not quite as polarised as 'God's Plan', 'In My Feelings' also had 70% of its votes be +3 up or -3 down - 91% in its 3rd week, which holds the highest single-week standard deviation of any song in 2018. This leaves 'Nice For What' as the highest of his big songs, but also still-to-come are his single-weekers 'Emotionless', 'Nonstop' and uncredited 'SICKO MODE'.

We had 'River' at #94, but 'Lucky You' is the first of his 3 'Kamikaze' top 10 hits out - probably just because it charted 1 week longer, as it narrowly has the highest average vote. Though debuting below 'The Ringer' on the OCC chart (possibly only due to tracklist order) 'Lucky You' had by far the best longevity of anything on the album (bar 'Venom' from its movie tie-in), and its success felt like a greater achievement to me than the statistically-bigger 'River' without an Ed Sheeran chorus - or anything much pop-friendly - to fall back on. On reshuffle, it went from a #10 start to being the highest of the 3 in its 2nd week. I found 'The Ringer' a bit better at first but with time this is the clear highlight.

Post's 3rd appearance, meaning his highest placer is... 'Jackie Chan', but 'Better Now' wins among his own songs. It's the only one that cracked a top 4 peak too - though so did 'rockstar' in 2017, which actually managed a *shock* positive points total, buoyed by full sets of +5s from me, Dobbo, LewisGT and almost darkstar79. 'Better Now' on the other hand can claim neither the same love nor hate (even 'Psycho' got twice as many +5s and -5s). I actually do like this song (there were a bunch of weeks there that I liked every song in the top 10) but I vastly prefer 'rockstar' and 'Psycho'.

And we return to Eminem, ending not only an entirely-hip hop section... but also a section where none of the songs have their own single covers While 'Lucky You' and 'The Ringer' switched order on reshuffle, 'Fall' was the 2nd highest on both weeks. Honestly I remember 'Fall' most for being the one with the homophobic slur that led uncredited feature Justin Vernon (of Bon Iver) to speak against it and say they'd 'kill this track'; that didn't eventuate. It has a good beat though and, unlike the other 2, a sung chorus, which might've helped it here.

This thread is making me wish so much that I'd actually entered this every week of the year haha. Definitely going to make sure I do so for 2019. *.* Great effort with all of this!

'Nice For What' and '2002' being my top and bottom top 10 hits of the year sounds more or less spot on anyway though despite the weeks I missed out! And '2002' being dead last overall is very satisfying. There haven't been too many particularly sad losses so far, although the Drake and Posty songs plus 'Funky Friday' and 'Lucky You' all deserved better. I know people don't generally like Post Malone on here but it's a shame nonetheless that even 'Better Now' was solidly in the negatives given it's pretty much a pure pop song and a really good one at that, my favourite song from him (but I've loved all of his hits bar 'Psycho' which was still pretty good although a cut below the rest).

The first of the 8 Christmas songs that made the top 10 in 2018! As the opening track from Bublé's perennially-huge 'Christmas' album, it's always been one of the biggest Christmas songs on Spotify (globally it still has the 3rd most all-time plays behind Mariah and Wham!, though Ariana caught up a lot this year), but it took until 2018 to reach the OCC top 10. Though several long-runners did worse in a single week, its -2.63 average vote beats only 'Perfect' and 'KIKA', and with only 1 vote above +2 it can lay a claim for the least loved song (only 'Perfect' has less). I assume it's unpopular because we're not interested in Bublé's joyless takes on standards, but I also like to believe that it's because we had to vote on a song about the beginning of Christmastime, in the week after Christmas.

A moderate hit in most places but surprisingly Derulo's highest UK charter since 2015, 'Tip Toe' wasn't a hate magnet like you might expect from ~classic Derulo~ but didn't inspire many high scores either - in fact, its 8% of votes +3 and above is the 4th lowest of all the songs. Had 'Goodbye' reached the top 10 I imagine it would've done the job of raking in the -5s, but I'd have given it some high votes at least

Here we have that esteemed Christmas #1, managing to outrank its artwork-sake (how I wish 'Tip Toe' had gotten 1 more point so they'd be next to each other). It received plenty of low votes of course - 13/18 were either -4 or -5 - but unlike Bublé, it actually managed a couple passionate fans. It's the highest reshuffle #10 peaker, ahead of fellow 1-weekers Bublé and 'KIKA' and 6-weeker 'ZEZE' (and 4-weeker 'Perfect' in terms of 2018 alone), and furthermore the highest song that ever placed at #10. I am unsure if I should blame it for the latest sausage roll-related discourse.

Though released in October 2017 and reaching #41 in early 2018, it took an ad-fueled revival and convenient re-playlisting many months later for it to reach the top 10. Even then, its #30 Spotify peak is probably among the lowest for a top 10 hit in the last couple years (its Spotify runs page is interesting for its timing being unusually unsynchronised between countries). Maybe it would've had more reshuffle success if it had made it when it was fresher? I doubt it though; I'm surprised enough that it managed to rank above not only '2002' but also 'I'll Be There' in all its weeks.

The highest of Eminem's 'Kamikaze' trio, all of which landed in the 70s. Just like the OCC chart, 'The Ringer' went from being the highest one in the 1st week to the lowest in the 2nd, but was kept away from the bottom 2 by 'I Love It' and 'Girls Like You'. 'The Ringer' narrowly has the highest % of positive votes of the 3, though like I said when it landed, 'Lucky You' has the highest average vote. It's surprising to see a song comprised of a 5-minute uninterrupted rap verse not be tanked; maybe his ''''mumble rapper'''' disses were appreciated?

I know people don't generally like Post Malone on here but it's a shame nonetheless that even 'Better Now' was solidly in the negatives given it's pretty much a pure pop song and a really good one at that, my favourite song from him (but I've loved all of his hits bar 'Psycho' which was still pretty good although a cut below the rest).

Yeah, echoing this. I'm not even a fan of Post Malone, but his 2018 output was all incredibly solid. 'Better Now' is amazing.

'In My Feelings' should be higher too, but I'm glad 'Nice For What' is Drake's best-performing #1 (hopefully by a considerable margin too!).

From our bumper 6ix9ine/James Arthur/James Arthur week, this Gabrielle Aplin Frankie Goes To Hollywood-covering X Factor winner's single showed that it's still possible for such things to make the OCC top 5, even while peaking at #89 on Spotify. I don't know why James Arthur ended up on it, or why they went back to covers after Rak-Su's 'Dímelo' did pretty well without even having a proper studio version, but I feel like Dalton Harris' part is one of the better cover winner's singles I've heard at least. Insulated from the bottom by its competition, it has 'KIKA' to thank for 4 of its -4s and the other James Arthur song for another 2 (the remaining 2 being ahead of 'Thursday').

And if you saw that week's results, you might remember that the 2 James Arthur tracks were tied, with 'Rewrite The Stars' ranking above because it received more +5sa +5. As I'm using the same tiebreaker here, 'Rewrite The Stars' gets to claim the nicer position for itself, backed up by posting a higher positive % too. Though the original only peaked at #16 in the UK, it actually peaked higher on Spotify worldwide than 'This Is Me' (and still has 99.2% as many total plays) probably due to better playlist support, so it being the most-pushed 'Reimagined' song kind of feels like its 2nd charge to try and make itself the most popular 'The Greatest Showman' song. As far as the UK top 10 is concerned though, it's not going to happen unless its current-week re-entry lasts forever.

Actually Sigala's longest-running UK top 11 hit, a fact I doubt anyone would guess without having followed the charts studiously. For one brief week, it meant he had a #1, #3, #5, #7 and #9 hit (plus an #11 since!) but then it had to go and reach #6, before managing to dodge ACR until its 18th week. Though not reaching the #2 reshuffle peak of 'Came Here For Love', 'Lullaby' did have a good start with 3 +5s its first week, but none of those 3 people voted beyond its 2nd week. Still, its 50.3% of positive votes is the most of any song below the top 55. At the same time, 4.4% of its votes being at either extreme is the lowest among songs that charted more than 6 weeks. Amusingly, its top/bottom voters look a lot like 'In My Feelings' in reverse - 5/6 names were in the opposite sections there.

An instant hit upon release in March, 'SAD!' only reached the UK top 10 for a week after his death, but it's probably not going to leave the Spotify charts anytime soon. In a week with the sole change among the top 10 songs being the very even-handed switch from 'No Tears Left To Cry' to 'SAD!', 'SAD!' managed to keep '2002' shut at #10, even claiming more +5s than '2002' ever did. Surprisingly, it's only the 6th-lowest single-weeker.

Like 'Lullaby', another mid-range hit that inspired few very high or low scores. I remember - or don't remember - it most for being killed so hard by ACR that it almost feels like it never existed in the first place. I'm surprised I'm in the bottom 3 as I do like it, but what votes below -3 it got were mostly from non-regulars.

Managing not to kill his career with his politics, Kanye's first 2018 album 'ye' still got a lot of attention with all 7 tracks performing well enough to make the OCC top 30 if not for the 3-track rule. 'Yikes' was the song that scraped a #10 debut, quite luckily with its #55 sales-only position pulling it ahead of the more-streamed 'All Mine', which ended up 267 sales behind at #11 - but placed ahead every week thereafter, and became the biggest Spotify hit from the album (171m plays compared to 101m for 'Yikes'). In reshuffle, 'Yikes' holds the highest average weekly standard deviation of the 100 songs (though only the 16th-highest in a single week, with the songs ahead having lower weeks to even them out), with 12/17 votes being either +5/+4 or -5/-4. '2002' saved it from #10, but with a difference of only 2 points.

The holy union of deceased artists... except it's a song originally by Lil Peep and iLoveMakonnen (of 'Tuesday' fame) that XXXTENTACION added a verse to after Peep's death, even though Peep reportedly did not like him at all. (If you like the song but not the XXXTENTACION, know that the original version was released too the following week, titled 'Sunlight On Your Skin'.) Naturally it made enough waves for a top 10 debut, but it didn't hold up half as well as XXXTENTACION's own music has - maybe because of the iffy collab or maybe because it doesn't really sound like either of their music; to me it's more akin to iLoveMakonnen's preceding single 'Love' with Rae Sremmurd (which actually has the lyrics 'falling down' too). 'Falling Down' beat 'Taste' and 'I Love It' to an #8 reshuffle placement, and gives coi and I the dubious achievement of being, on both of XXXTENTACION's top 10 hits, the only +5s. Interestingly nobody gave both of them -5s.

Originally peaking at #24 in 1973, 'Step Into Christmas' reached #11 in 2017 and #10 for the first time in 2018 - which would be Elton's first ever reshuffle appearance, as the inaugural reshuffle chart in 2009 was about a month too late for Ironik's 'Tiny Dancer (Hold Me Closer)'. Though firmly ahead of Bublé's #10, it was mostly agreed as not a highlight among the 8 Christmas songs. I'm not surprised as it's easily the least familiar of them to me, but I imagine if I listened to a UK radio station for a few hours in December that might change fast.

Potentially one of the best pieces of 2018 chart trivia is that this was one of the top 3 debuts from his album, ahead of 'In My Feelings' - which replaced it the next week, giving 'Emotionless' the commendable chart run of 5-out. Not that its 7-32-51-75-112-176-out Spotify run is that much better. It's only memorable to me for prominently sampling (the 12" club mix of) Mariah Carey's effervescent 1991 hit 'Emotions', a great song that you should go listen to instead. Genius also reminds me that it's the song where he acknowledged the existence of his child, but ultimately it's probably being track 4 that's most responsible for it being here. It's the highest of the songs that peaked at #9 on reshuffle ahead of '2002' (following 'SAD!' and 'Yikes'), and remaining for Drake are 'Nice For What' and 'Nonstop' (and 'SICKO MODE').

The only multi-weeker in this set is 'Man's Not Hot' with a total 9 weeks... but only 2 of those in 2018. It started low but actually managed a positive total in the last 2 weeks of 2017, even ranking ahead of Mariah the 2nd time. It holds the 2nd highest average weekly standard deviation of 2018 (behind 'Yikes'; right ahead of 'God's Plan'), with 62% of its votes being +5/+4 or -5/-4. I like it but I actually prefer 'Scooby Doo Pa Pa', the dembow track-turned-viral dance soundtrack inspired by it (the title coming from not Scooby-Doo the dog, but where Big Shaq says 'skidiki-pap-pap').

This is a great read, and I'll be intrigued to find out what the most 'average' top 10 song of the year turns out to be. Lullaby looks like the one to beat with the closest average vote to zero so far, and that was over 7 weeks.